Survival Analysis of Faculty Retention in Science and Engineering by Gender

Kaminski, Deborah A.; Geisler, Cheryl

doi:10.1126/science.1214844

Cited by 146 publications

(139 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Women of color represent an even smaller proportion of new PhD's, with less than 2% of doctoral degrees earned in the physical sciences and engineering (National Science Foundation 2017). The rate of completion of the doctorate for all STEM fields has not yet translated into numbers of women entering the academy or achieving tenure at research institutions, let alone advancing to full professorships and academic honors (Hill et al 2010;Kaminski and Geisler 2011;Xie and Shauman 2003). Explanations for this disparity range from biological to institutional, economic to cultural with constructs such as the "leaky pipeline", "chilly climate", and difficulty "balancing" working and family.…”

Section: Underrepresentation Of Women In Stemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chilly Climates, Balancing Acts, and Shifting Pathways: What Happens to Women in STEM Doctoral Programs

Cabay¹,

Bernstein

Rivers

et al. 2018

Social Sciences

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Women in doctoral programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) leave without finishing at higher rates than men and, as with men, turn away from academic and research careers. This qualitative study examines the day-to-day influences on female doctoral students during their third or fourth year in physical science and engineering programs. Ethnographic cognitive interviewing and online incident reports document the specific experiences and reactions of 28 participants over a six-month period. The data were analyzed to identify key incidents, categories and recurring themes. Some incidents contributed to women's growing sense of competence, recognition and identification of oneself as a scientist. Others fit a model of microaggressions and gender barriers in a predominantly masculine culture. Problems of work-life balance were demonstrated for some women. Incidents generated responses by some participants that they would disengage from a research-intensive career trajectory toward alternate career interests outside of academic research. The findings provide information about the lived experiences of women in doctoral programs and suggest that the metaphor of career pathways may be more useful than pipelines in explaining the direction of women who are advanced doctoral students in research-intensive fields.Keywords: women; graduate students; science and engineering; STEM; gender inequity Gaps between men and women persist in the pursuit and outcomes of degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) (Shauman 2017; Turk-Bicakci and Berger 2014). In the life and social sciences, women have closed the gap in undergraduate majors and admission to graduate programs and now exceed men in completion of doctoral programs (National Science Foundation 2017). Yet women are awarded fewer than 25% of the doctoral degrees in the physical sciences and engineering, and hold disproportionately fewer tenured faculty positions in STEM and far fewer positions of prestige and power (Bernstein 2011;Handelsman et al. 2005;Fox 2001; National Science Foundation 2017).The "leaky pipeline" metaphor commonly refers to the disproportionate exit of women from STEM at transitions from one educational or career level to another, the consequence of which is fewer and fewer women remaining in the "pool" for subsequent advancement in STEM ). The pipeline metaphor relies on a somewhat linear conception of careers with certain specified outcomes, such as moving from an undergraduate major in STEM, through PhD degrees and postdocs, to faculty positions, to tenure, and eventually to full rank in research universities. Previous research on why women leave STEM fields at a greater rate than their male counterparts has examined the motivation of women to pursue STEM undergraduate degrees (Beyer 2014;Griffith 2010;Grunert and Bobnerb 2011;London et al.

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Section: Underrepresentation Of Women In Stemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chilly Climates, Balancing Acts, and Shifting Pathways: What Happens to Women in STEM Doctoral Programs

Cabay¹,

Bernstein

Rivers

et al. 2018

Social Sciences

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“…Once hired, women prosper in the STEM professoriate (14,(16)(17)(18): They are remunerated, persist, and are promoted at rates roughly comparable to men's (14) after controlling for observable characteristics, including academic productivity. However, to be hired and eventually tenured, women must first apply.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track

Williams

Ceci

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

351

282

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National randomized experiments and validation studies were conducted on 873 tenure-track faculty (439 male, 434 female) from biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 universities/colleges from 50 US states and the District of Columbia. In the main experiment, 363 faculty members evaluated narrative summaries describing hypothetical female and male applicants for tenure-track assistant professorships who shared the same lifestyle (e.g., single without children, married with children). Applicants' profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both math-intensive and non-math-intensive fields, with the single exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Results were replicated using weighted analyses to control for national sample characteristics. In follow-up experiments, 144 faculty evaluated competing applicants with differing lifestyles (e.g., divorced mother vs. married father), and 204 faculty compared same-gender candidates with children, but differing in whether they took 1-y-parental leaves in graduate school. Women preferred divorced mothers to married fathers; men preferred mothers who took leaves to mothers who did not. In two validation studies, 35 engineering faculty provided rankings using full curricula vitae instead of narratives, and 127 faculty rated one applicant rather than choosing from a mixed-gender group; the same preference for women was shown by faculty of both genders. These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in academic science. Messages to the contrary may discourage women from applying for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) tenure-track assistant professorships.gender bias | hiring bias | underrepresentation of women | faculty hiring | women in science W omen considering careers in academic science confront stark portrayals of the treacherous journey to becoming professors. Well-publicized research depicts a thicket of obstacles standing between female graduate students and tenure-track positions, including inadequate mentoring and networking (1); a chilly social climate (2); downgrading of work products such as manuscripts (3), grant proposals (4), and lectures (5); and gender bias in interviewing and hiring (6-9). Numerous blue ribbon panels and national reports have concluded that implicit, and sometimes explicit, attitudes pervade the hiring process and negatively influence evaluations of female candidates and their scholarship, contributing to women's underrepresentation within the academy (e.g., refs. 10-13).Women's underrepresentation in academic science is hardly trivial. In life and social sciences, women now earn the majority of doctorates, but they make up a minority of assistant professors. In 1993In -1995.4% of assistant pr...

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“…Despite the equal numbers of women and men obtaining degrees at these levels, there is still evidence of fewer women in the sciences at many levels, from doctoral training programs to eventual career placement. In fact, for engineering and natural sciences, at each successive stage in the academic and career pathways (bachelor's, master's, doctorate, faculty, administration) the retention of women drops in comparison to the previous stage (Goldberger and Crowe, 2010;Kaminski and Geisler, 2012 …”

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confidence: 99%

Gender Representation in Faculty and Leadership at Land Grant and Research Institutions

2017

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A gronomy J our n al • Volume 10 9, I ssue 1 • 2 017 I t could be argued that the ongoing concern about recruiting and retaining women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has roots back to the fi rst formative years of the Land Grant Institutions (LGIs) in the United States, aft er their establishment in 1862 and 1890. One of the primary missions of the LGIs was to increase the proportion of women at their institutions (Bowman, 1962), in an eff ort to improve the numbers of women receiving higher education since their fi rst permissible admittance to U.S. colleges in 1837 (begun at Oberlin College in 1837; Graham, 1978). While most educational training programs for women focused primarily on "home economics", LGIs found that most female students preferred more STEM oriented subjects that had been intended for males-resulting in the employment of women in a broad range of jobs that were not in any way related to home economics, including participating in and teaching STEM subjects (Bowman, 1962). Despite this promising beginning over 150 yr ago, the number of women in STEM professions has continued to lag well behind men.Th ere has been much consternation, targeted recruitment, creation of focused support programs, and academic study into increasing the numbers of women in STEM (McGuire et al., 2012). Some progress has been made, particularly at institutions other than LGIs. Th e training of women in some STEM disciplines has shown improvement; for example, women earned bachelor's degrees in STEM in equal numbers to men by 1996 (Luckenbill-Edds, 2002), and doctoral degrees in biology also reached equality between men and women (McGuire et al., 2012). In fact, the stages where the numbers of women decrease during the academic training process, were considered gone at the bachelor's and master's levels by the 1990s, such that the number of women and men at these academic stages reached equal numbers (LuckenbillEdds, 2002). Despite the equal numbers of women and men obtaining degrees at these levels, there is still evidence of fewer women in the sciences at many levels, from doctoral training programs to eventual career placement. In fact, for engineering and natural sciences, at each successive stage in the academic and career pathways (bachelor's, master's, doctorate, faculty, administration) the retention of women drops in comparison to the previous stage (Goldberger and Crowe, 2010;Kaminski and Geisler, 2012 ABSTRACTRepresentation of women in agricultural science was 5% in 1979, increasing to 12% by 2005. Th e near equal numbers of women and men receiving Ph.D. degrees in agricultural science in 2012 (44 to 56%, respectively) would suggest an upward trend of women scientists above 12% should be occurring over time.To monitor possible trends in the representation of women in agricultural science, we quantifi ed the numbers of women at land grant institutions at the faculty and higher administration level and in leadership positions within scientifi c societies, industry boards, and govern...

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Survival Analysis of Faculty Retention in Science and Engineering by Gender

Cited by 146 publications

References 14 publications

Chilly Climates, Balancing Acts, and Shifting Pathways: What Happens to Women in STEM Doctoral Programs

Chilly Climates, Balancing Acts, and Shifting Pathways: What Happens to Women in STEM Doctoral Programs

National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track

Gender Representation in Faculty and Leadership at Land Grant and Research Institutions

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